The Denver School Board has been tying itself in knots trying to find a good location for a new STRIVE Prep High School – when it already has one.

Three months ago the board flinched when presented with an attractive plan to “co-locate” a STRIVE Prep High School (known at the time as West Denver Prep) at half-empty North High in the fall of 2013. In the face of opposition from some parents who unfortunately saw high-performing STRIVE as a threat, the board established a Stakeholder Working Group to search for an alternative.

Well, the citizens committee reported its findings recently and the board is still mired in indecision. And no wonder.

The committee concluded the “best solution would be to place STRIVE Prep High School at Lake, and find a new location for STRIVE Prep Lake Middle School south of Lake and north of 6th Avenue.” That sounds relatively simple except that it’s not. The committee admits it “will not be an easy option” and that “there will no doubt be costs involved with identifying a new building.”

The board has given staff 30 to 60 days to find a new location for STRIVE Prep Lake Middle School and to assess the financial implications.

Will the Denver school board really be willing to placate critics of the North High option at the expense of taxpayers elsewhere in the district if it turns out that the citizens committee’s top alternative costs significantly more than the original plan?

In Denver, someone who uses another bank’s ATM will get hit with an average $2.80 surcharge. That’s the highest in the nation. But that same person also will get socked with an average $1.88 fee by their own bank for using a non-network ATM. Combined, that’s an average $4.68 charge. Ouch.

In addition, Denver’s average overdraft fee is $33.60 — again, highest in the nation. The figures come courtesy of Bankrate.com, a financial information web site for consumers.

Sure, banks are going to charge fees to recoup their costs and even make a profit. But this isn’t New York or San Francisco and we think consumers have a right to expect fees more in line with Denver’s relatively modest cost of living.

And we’ve seen the fires of summer. (Let us hope they are spent. Should they return, may rains roll down like a mighty stream.)

The air has reeked of ash, the airwaves, of ads. The ads continue. It’s been grit and grist, grime and grim, Smokey and smoke. Earlier you could count the airy particulates as the fires’ devastation spread. Not so easy on the media front: pinning down candidate particulars. Read more…

If you’re not old enough or only barely old enough to vote, you won’t remember that. But the rest of us do.

The most enduring example is from the Reagan years, when the Republican president battled with the Democrats tooth-and-nail by day … then had them over to the White House for poker, drinks, and a lot of laughs by night.

That’s one of the things we old folks mean when we talk about “the good ol’ days.” For the time being, the good ol’ days are gone. Alas.

OK, we can all agree that the officiating of America’s Game ranges somewhere between pretty lousy and pretty ugly.
With the regular National Football League zebras sidelined because of a labor dispute, their replacements are over their heads — some a lot.

What’s the answer? The most popular — at least the one favored by the media—is to bring back the real referees, umpires, head linesmen etc. no matter what it costs. Pay them whatever they want.

Not so fast. The people who get into games for free are too generous with the team owners’ money.
According to documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, the sticking point in the labor standoff is not pay. One estimate is that game officials now make an average of $100,000 a season for 20 days of real work. That figure may or may not include travel expenses. The NFL is willing to increase those salaries this season.

The main dispute is over is funding of pensions. The officials want to retain guaranteed increases in pension funds and the league wants to get out of the business of guarantees. It has good reason. Read more…

Vincent Carroll is The Denver Post's editorial page editor. He has been writing commentary on politics and public policy in Colorado since 1982 and was originally with the Rocky Mountain News, where he was also editor of the editorial pages until that newspaper gave up the ghost in 2009.

Guidelines: The Post welcomes letters up to 150 words on topics of general interest. Letters must include full name, home address, day and evening phone numbers, and may be edited for length, grammar and accuracy.

To reach the Denver Post editorial page by phone: 303-954-1331

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